issue of which was begun in 1858. To comprehend Michael Henry it is
absolutely necessary to turn over these sheets, a fine set of which
(as continued also by Mr. Ernest de Pass) may be seen in the British
Museum. Each _Almanac_ consists of a single page, on which are
crowded masses of technical information--statistical, practical, and
historical. The artistic design is clever. Now, the reason why I am
referring to these almanacs is this: From 1862 onwards, the sheets are
adorned by quotations as well as pictures. In 1864 Michael Henry quotes
from Disraeli: “You have disenthroned force, and placed on her high
seat intelligence.” Then the compiler must have been struck by the fact
that Disraeli’s remark had a scriptural analogue. In 1865, and in every
subsequent year, the _Almanac_ is surmounted by the maxim: “Wisdom
is better than strength” (Ecclesiastes). The reference is to chapter
9 verse 16. In 1866 he quotes Gladstone: “There is no honourable,
no useful place, upon this busy, teeming earth, for the idle man.”
In another issue he uses a passage from that once popular versifier
Mackay; union had often been tried by man for purposes of war, why not
try it for purposes of peace, so that “construction, industry, and
mutual aid,” may “lead from darkness into light.” Naturally enough he
revels in Tennyson:
Men our brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new,
That which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall do.
He used that couplet in 1872. Of course, he presents in due course the
same poet’s
Let Knowledge grow from more to more,
But more of reverence in us dwell!
Quite obvious all this, no doubt. Michael Henry was, one must admit,
given to the cult of the obvious. Therein lies not blame but praise.
Many of us just fail because we do not see what lies simply before
us. Tennyson was the incarnation of obviousness, hence he helped his
generation to see. Michael Henry had no very keen or far vision. But
he saw straight, he saw true. He was not an ocean goer, he hugged the
shore within a dozen miles or so. Very like a life-boat, after all!
Clearly a “Michael Henry” in good working order will always be the best
monument to his memory! And he belongs to the type which ought to be
remembered.
THE POEMS OF EMMA LAZARUS
Affixed to the colossal monument, which dominates and ennobles the
entrance to New York harbor, is, as all the world knows, a poem by Emma
Lazarus (1849-1887). It commemorates her and her genius. Liberty, “a
mighty woman with a torch,” stands there as the “Mother of Exiles,”
crying with silent lips to the older world:
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost, to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
This sonnet expresses both sides of the writer’s idealism: her devotion
to America and her love for the Jews. She wrote much as a Hellenist,
but her genuine outbursts were stimulated by two crises: the American
War of North and South in the sixties, and the Russian Persecutions in
the eighties. In a sense it is unfortunate that the May Laws came so
late. Emma Lazarus had but few years to live after the promulgation of
the legislation which sent forth, from their country, those myriads
of Russian Jews, whose presence has so profoundly altered Jewish
conditions in various lands. Her Jewish poems are full indeed of fire,
but it is the fire of an immature passion. When she died, she had only
begun to find herself as the singer of Israel’s cause.
Even so, however, her songs will not die. For she realized that
Israel is “the slave of the Idea.” She did not fully grasp what the
Idea was, however. Israel’s migrations--including those from Russia
to Texas--were all, she felt, towards a destined end, and that
end--Freedom:
Freedom to love the law that Moses brought,
To sing the songs of David, and to think
The thoughts Gabirol to Spinoza taught,
Freedom to dig the common earth, to drink
The universal air--for this they sought
Refuge o’er wave and continent, to link
Egypt with Texas in their mystic chain,
And truth’s perpetual lamp forbid to wane.
Freedom is part of Israel’s Idea; it is not the whole of it.
[Illustration: EMMA LAZARUS]
In her new-found enthusiasm for the Hebrew language she translated
much from the medieval poets. But she will always come to one’s mind
as the bard of Hanukkah. There she comes nearest to the Idea of
which Israel is the missioner. Cheyne, in one of his finest works (_The
Origin and Religious Contents of the Psalter_, pp. 18, 104), quotes two
stanzas from her _Feast of Lights_ as an apt commentary on Psalms 79
and 118, contrasting the desolation of Zion and the re-dedication:
They who had camped within the mountain-pass,
Couched on the rock, and tented ’neath the sky,
Who saw from Mizpah’s heights the tangled grass
Choke the wide Temple-courts, the altar lie
Disfigured and polluted--who had flung
Their faces on the stones, and mourned aloud
And rent their garments, wailing with one tongue,
Crushed as a wind-swept bed of reeds is bowed,
Even they by one voice fired, one heart of flame,
Though broken reeds, had risen, and were men,
They rushed upon the spoiler and o’ercame,
Each arm for freedom had the strength of ten.
Now is their mourning into dancing turned,
Their sackcloth doffed for garments of delight,
Week-long the festive torches shall be burned,
Music and revelry wed day with night.
One could quote much else from Emma Lazarus; her pagan poems written
under classic and romantic influences; her renderings of Heine; her
historical tragedy, the _Dance of Death_, dedicated to George Eliot;
her prose epistles, in one of which occurs her famous use of a Hebrew
grammatical form. In the Hebrew verb there is an _intensive_ voice,
and so the Jews are the _intensive_ form of any nationality whose
language and customs they adopt. Or again, one might cite her _New
Ezekiel_, her _Bar Kochba_, her _Talmud Legends_, her _Rashi in
Prague_, or, better still, her lines from Nahum’s Spring Song:
Now the dreary winter’s over,
Fled with him are grief and pain;
When the trees their bloom recover,
Then the soul is born again!
But her hand is always firmest when her theme is the Maccabæan heroism.
This subject gave her the opportunity which her nationalistic mood
needed. We have read part of one of her poems on the subject, let us
read another in full, though it is perhaps the most familiar of her
compositions. Its title is “The Banner of the Jew.” While it repeats
the thought and almost the phrases of the _Feast of Lights_, it has
more of the lyric lightness of touch. It runs thus:
Wake, Israel, wake! Recall to-day
The glorious Maccabean rage,
The sire heroic, hoary-gray,
His five-fold lion-lineage:
The Wise, the Elect, the Help-of-God,
The Burst-of-Spring, the Avenging Rod.
From Mizpeh’s mountain-ridge they saw
Jerusalem’s empty streets, her shrine
Laid waste where Greeks profaned the Law,
With idol and with pagan sign.
Mourners in tattered black were there,
With ashes sprinkled on their hair.
Then, from the stony peak there rang
A blast to ope the graves: down poured
The Maccabean clan, who sang
Their battle-anthem to the Lord.
Five heroes lead, and following, see
Ten thousand rush to victory!
Oh for Jerusalem’s trumpet now,
To blow a blast of shattering power,
To wake the sleepers high and low,
And rouse them to the urgent hour!
No hand for vengeance--but to save,
A thousand naked swords should wave.
O deem not dead that martial fire,
Say not the mystic flame is spent!
With Moses’ law and David’s lyre,
Your ancient strength remains unbent.
Let but an Ezra rise anew,
To lift the _Banner of the Jew_!
A rag, a mock at first--erelong
When men have bled and women wept,
To guard its precious folds from wrong,
Even they who shrunk, even they who slept,
Shall leap to bless it, and to save.
Strike! for the brave revere the brave!
This is bold and moving, but the reader cannot fail to observe that
the metre and the passion are derived from Byron’s _Isles of Greece_.
The Hebrew’s protest _against_ Greece must, forsooth, owe its form and
sentiment to the Saxon’s plea _for_ Greece! The Jewish muse is still in
leading strings. The true, full song of Israel’s hope is yet to come.
None the less, the genius of Emma Lazarus struck truly the key-note to
that song. We hear its echo still.
CONDER’S “TENT WORK IN PALESTINE”
He used the Bible too much to please some of the continentals. Compare,
for instance, Gautier with Conder. The Frenchman employed the Bible to
illustrate the country, the Englishman the country to illustrate the
Bible. Which procedure is preferable? The answer is another question.
Why does every inch of Palestine interest the modern explorer? No
Parthenon is to be seen within its boundaries, no Sphinx. Neither
is the Attic beautiful there to charm, nor the Egyptian colossal to
provide a thrill. When Thomson (in 1859) called his work “The Land and
the Book,” he put the seal on the English way of regarding the relation
between the geography and the history of the Holy Land. Englishmen have
been among the keenest geographers of Palestine because they respond
best to its history.
Hence Conder’s defect, as some have termed it, is, in truth, his
merit. Apart, however, from the pietism of his motives, he deserved
well of all who love Palestine. He gave some of his best years to
its survey, and that operation did much to revivify the country. His
services must always have a value because he, more than any other
modern, put an end to a sort of thing formerly common. I mean the sort
of thing which a pious old dame is said once to have remarked: “I
knew these places were in the Bible, but I did not know they were in
Palestine.” Jews in particular owe a good deal to him. I doubt whether
I, for one, would ever have visited Medyeh--probably Modin, the home
of the Maccabæans--but for Conder. I think I could quote by heart his
description how the ancient road from Jerusalem to Lydda emerged from
the rocky Beth-horon defiles and “ran along a mountain spur towards
the plain”; how, a mile or so to the north of this main road, the
village of Modin was built upon the southern slopes of the valley; how
the gentle hills of the lowlands (Shephelah) could be seen from the
Modin Knoll, stretching westwards. “At their feet, amid dark groves
of olive, lay the white town of Lydda, and behind it the broad plain
of Sharon extended to a breadth of ten miles. Furthest of all, the
yellow-gleaming sand-dunes bounded the rich arable land, and the waters
of the Great Sea (the Mediterranean) shone brightly under the afternoon
sun.”
This description comes from one of Conder’s other books, his _Judas
Maccabæus_. But his earlier _Tent Work in Palestine_ (1878) is full
of passages just as vivid. It is even more interesting because it
shows us the explorer groping for the results, at which he has not yet
arrived. Aptly enough, the title-page presents, from a sketch by the
author, a theodolite-party at work, for the survey of Western Palestine
was conducted on serious trigonometrical methods. That the narrative
is so picturesque must not blind us to the truth that the operations
were severely scientific. We are now, however, concerned with the
pictorial effects. Read, as a parallel to the Modin description,
Conder’s account of his first visit to Samaria. Taking the north road
from Jerusalem, he passes the ranges about Neby Samuel (probably the
ancient Mizpah), and sees the hills of Benjamin, “black against a sky
of most delicate blush-rose tint, and the contrast was perhaps the
finest in a land where fine effects are common at sunset.” Then he
descends into the rough gorge of the Robbers’ Fountain. “The road is
not improved by the habit of clearing the stones off the surrounding
gardens into the public path.” In the east, roads are often thus
made the common dumping-ground for rubbish, and I remember how the
walk round the outside of the Jerusalem walls was much spoilt by the
heaps of vegetable and other refuse which had been flung over the
ramparts. (General Allenby’s campaign has already changed all that
for the better.) Proceeding, “the short twilight gave place to almost
total darkness as we began to climb the watershed which separates
the plain from the valley coming down from Shiloh, and the moon had
risen when the great shoulder of Gerizim became dimly visible some ten
miles away, with a silvery wreath of cloud on its summit.” The right
time to appreciate Palestinian scenes is usually just after sunset.
And so, on this night march, Conder describes how, “creeping beneath
the shadow of Gerizim, we gained the narrow valley of Shechem, and
followed a stony lane between walnut trees under a steep hillside. The
barking of dogs was now heard, and the lights in camp came into view.
My poor terrier was tired and sleepy, and was set upon at once by
Drake’s larger bull-terriers, Jack and Jill, rather a rude reception
after a thirty-mile journey.” Mr. C. F. Tyrwhitt Drake--who died soon
afterwards--had gone on in advance and had placed the camp close to the
beautiful fountain of Ras el-Ain.
Such extended journeys could not be accomplished without paying
the price. Thus, after the survey of Samaria, Carmel, and Sharon,
operations had to be suspended for a time, simply because the party
had reached the limit of endurance. “The fatigue of the campaign had
been very great. My eyes were quite pink all over, with the effects
of the glare of white chalk, my clothes were in rags, my boots had
no soles. The men were no better off, and the horses also were all
much exhausted, suffering from soreback, due to the grass diet.” But
the spirit was stronger than the flesh. “The rest soon restored our
energies, and autumn found us once more impatient to be in the fields.”
Thence Conder was off to Damascus, Baalbek and Hermon, away from
Palestine itself. The ascent of the 9,000 feet of mount Hermon was
begun at 10.30 a. m., and at 2 o’clock the summit was reached. But we
must pass over the glowing description of the panorama that unfolded
itself to the gaze of the explorers. After three months in the north,
tents were struck, and the party marched out of their pleasant
mountain-camp, bound for Jerusalem and the hills of Judah. Of the many
pen-pictures which Conder draws, we will stay only to regard one--the
description of Bethar, where Bar Cochba made his great effort at
recovering Jewish independence (about the year 135 of the present era).
Conder locates the fortress at the modern village Bittîr (at which
there is now a railway station). It is about thirty-five miles from the
sea, and about five from Jerusalem. “On every side, except the south,
it is surrounded by deep and rugged gorges, and it is supplied with
fresh water from a spring above the village. On the north the position
would have been impregnable, as steep cliffs rise from the bottom
of the ravine, upon which the houses are perched. The name (Bittîr)
exactly represents the Hebrew (Bethar), and the distances agree with
those noticed by Eusebius and the Talmud. Nor must the curious title be
forgotten, which is applied to a shapeless mass of ruin on the hill,
immediately west of Bittîr, for the name Khurbet el Yehûd--Ruin of the
Jews--may be well thought to hand down traditionally among the natives
of the neighbourhood the memory of the great catastrophe of Bethar.”
Whether this place is the true site of Bar Cochba’s Bethar may be
seriously questioned, but no other view can claim to be more certain.
“The site of Bethar must still be considered doubtful,” says that good
authority, S. Krauss, who himself is inclined to the theory which
places the fortress much further north, near Sepphoris.
We should like to linger over the rest of Conder’s journey, but the
few lines that remain must be devoted to his final remarks. Conder,
it must ever be remembered, was one of the first to dispute the then
current belief that the Holy Land had lost its old character for
fertility, and that changes in climate had induced an irreparable
barrenness. He maintained in particular that the supposed dearth of
water had been much exaggerated by recent tourists. “With respect to
the annual rainfall, it is only necessary to note that, with the old
cisterns cleaned and mended, and the beautiful tanks and aqueducts
repaired, the ordinary fall would be quite sufficient for the wants
of the inhabitants and for irrigation.” (Here, too, recent events
have effected an agreeable transformation.) And, in general “the
change in productiveness which has really occurred in Palestine, is
due to decay of cultivation, to decrease of population, and to bad
government. It is Man and not Nature, who has ruined the good land
in which was ‘no lack,’ and it is, therefore, within the power of
human industry to restore the old country to its old condition of
agricultural prosperity.” Construct roads, raise irrigation works,
promote afforestation--those were the measures Conder suggested, after
the three strenuous years of his survey (1872 to 1875). Such optimistic
opinions are now quite common; and, we may hope, are tending towards
realization, if only men’s hopes are not set too high. But let us not
forget that among the first moderns to formulate such opinions, on the
basis of _exact knowledge_, was the author of _Tent Work in Palestine_.
KALISCH’S “PATH AND GOAL”
Of Marcus Kalisch’s learned commentaries on the Bible it has been truly
said that they are a thorough summary of all that had been written on
the subject up to the date when those commentaries were published. He
not only knew everything, but he had assimilated it. Nor was it only
his learning that placed him among the first among the Jewish scholars
of the second part of the nineteenth century. He was original as well;
that he “anticipated Wellhausen,” more than one has declared of him, as
they have declared of others before Kalisch.
Learning and originality make a fairly strong instrument for drawing
out the truth. But another strand is needed to compose the threefold
cord that shall not easily be broken. This, too, Kalisch had at his
command. It is the strand of sentiment. In his more orthodox days when
he produced his _Exodus_ (1855), and in his more rationalistic period
when he gave to the world his _Balaam_ and his _Jonah_ (1887-8)--at
all stages of his activity he was never the mere philologist. Like
Sheridan’s character, he was a man of sentiment; but unlike Joseph
Surface, his sentiment was genuine. He was, to put the same truth in
other words, an expounder of ideas as well as a critic of words.
It should have surprised no one to meet Kalisch in any situation where
the qualities above defined could be exercised. Yet some of those who
only thought of him as the Hebrew grammarian must have opened their
eyes when the fact was brought to their notice that within a couple
of years of printing his _Genesis_ (1858) he issued a small volume on
Oliver Goldsmith. In 1860 he spoke the substance of this volume as
“two lectures delivered to a village audience.” The theme was treated
by him with considerable learning, but with an even more considerable
good feeling. I remember particularly two or three sentences in this
book. “Forgive his faults, but do not forget them” is one--I quote from
memory and may not be verbally exact. Forgiveness not only differs from
forgetfulness, but, humanely considered, the two things are scarcely
consistent. You really can only forgive when you remember--all that the
man was whom you are judging. Another sentence that I recall is this:
“You will find Goldsmith’s life again in his writings, and his writings
in his life.” This is a notable conception, not original to Kalisch.
But the turn he gives to it seems to me quite fresh. Goldsmith, he
asserts, was a great writer and--despite the faults aforementioned--a
good man. “You see his goodness in his writings and his greatness in
his life”--a brilliant epigram, but also a neat description of the
ideal man of letters.
But how came it that Marcus Kalisch, a German and a Jew, was addressing
village audiences in England at all? Born in Pomerania in 1828, he
had come to England fresh from the Universities of Berlin and Halle.
Like so many others of various nationalities and creeds, he had
played a generous part in the 1848 affair, and felt unsafe after its
suppression. Nathan Marcus Adler had settled in London in 1845. The
refugee found an asylum with the new chief rabbi: Kalisch served the
latter as secretary for five years. His former employer must have felt
fairly uncomfortable when Kalisch’s _Leviticus_ appeared (1867-72), for
this was a pretty thorough departure from the old-fashioned standpoint.
Kalisch, of course, was not without honor in his own community. He
had a real, though not an undiscriminating, admirer in the late A. L.
Green. We still, however, seem rather far off from solving the riddle:
how came Kalisch to be talking to English village audiences on Oliver
Goldsmith or on any other subject? The answer is given with the names
of the villages. They were Aston Clinton and Mentmore in the county of
Buckinghamshire--places long associated with the country homes of the
Rothschilds. In 1853 Kalisch was appointed tutor to the sons of Baron
Lionel de Rothschild. From that date until Kalisch’s death, in 1885,
there was no break in the cordial relations between the Rothschilds and
the scholar. They provided the leisure, and he provided the capacity
to make worthy use of it. Countless are the honorable incidents in the
Rothschild record, but there is none on which a Jewish writer more
loves to dwell than on the association of the family with the author of
_Path and Goal_.
The scene of that work is Cordova Lodge, the house of Gabriel de
Mondoza, situated in one of the northern suburbs of London. It was
“an unpretending structure of moderate dimensions, but adorned
with consummate taste and judgment.” The further description of
the house rather reminds one of Disraeli’s creations. And this
Lodge, “a veritable rus in urbe,” with its Greek busts and “modest
conservatories”--there is not lacking even “a diminutive farm”--was,
we are told, so located and ordered as to afford “an atmosphere of
calm cheerfulness, inviting the mind at once to concentration and
intercommunion.” The owner, in whose abode Kalisch represents his
characters as gathered, was descended from a distinguished family of
Spanish Jews, who had come from Holland to England during Cromwell’s
protectorate. His mother was a German, “of an essentially artistic
nature.” From his father he derived his love for the Bible, from his
mother his admiration for the Classics; and doubtful as to which to
prefer, “he clung the more firmly to both, and laboured to weld the
conceptions of the Scriptures and of Hellenism into one homogeneous
design.”
His house was the habitual meeting-place for many native and
foreign guests, and during the International Exhibition a specially
representative group are found at Cordova Lodge, conducting a
“discussion of the elements of civilisation and the conditions of
happiness.” This discussion is the substance of the volume entitled
_Path and Goal_. Such symposia go back to Plato, but it was W. H.
Mallock who, with his _New Republic_, re-popularized the genre in
England. This appeared in 1877; Kalisch’s _Path and Goal_ followed it
in 1880. The disputants in the latter work include Christians of all
degrees of high and low Churchiness; a naturalist and a Hellenist; a
Reform and an Orthodox Rabbi; a Parsee and a Mohammedan; a Brahman
and a Buddhist. Perhaps the most remarkable feature of this gathering
is Kalisch’s recognition of the importance of the Eastern religions.
Sometimes, indeed, those who try to prefigure the future of the world’s
religion take account of Islam. But very few remember the beliefs
and institutions of India. The learning with which Kalisch discusses
the Indian systems would be amazing were one not prepared for it by
previous knowledge of his encyclopedic acquirements.
We will not follow out into any detail the course of the conversations
at Cordova Lodge. It is cleverly constructed, being based on a
discussion of Ecclesiastes. The whole of that biblical book appears
in the second chapter of _Path and Goal_, and it is the text for what
follows. What is the object of the interchange of these opinions? “We
do not search for that which appertains to _one_ time or to _one_
nation, but those truths which flow from the constitution and wants of
human nature, and are on that account universal and unchanging.” No
definite result is reached, except, perhaps, the final justification
of Mondoza’s suggested “eucrasy”--the “harmony of character which is
the perfection of culture.” Here, then, we have the very antithesis
to the view expressed in Herzberg’s _Jewish Family Papers_. Kalisch
believed in the possible harmonization of various elements into a
perfect culture. But he does not describe as Jewish the resultant
harmony. He would not have cared at all about the name; he was chiefly
concerned with the thing. And in the light of this--for I think we may
not unjustly attribute the host’s sentiments to the host’s author--he
regarded the “political community as only an elementary stage”;
nationality was at best preparatory for the “universal union” of men;
while “the feeling of nationality is a onesidedness to be merged in a
genuine and ardent cosmopolitanism.” Cosmopolitanism is the political
correlative to a belief in culture. In the end there is a very general
agreement among the visitors at Cordova Lodge. “Is this a dream?” cries
Mondoza. “It heralds,” said Rabbi Gideon, with a trembling voice, “the
approach of the time predicted by our prophets, when ‘the Lord shall
be One and His name One’; and when ‘He shall bless the nations saying,
Blessed be Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and
Israel Mine inheritance.’” (Isaiah 19. 25.) So, after all, Kalisch’s
“Goal” is not widely distant from the Goal that may rightly be termed
Jewish.
FRANZ DELITZSCH’S “IRIS”
Light and color are the themes of the poet. But they and the flowers
attract the theologian also. Franz Delitzsch produced his _Studies in
Color and Talks on Flowers_ in 1888 (an English version appearing in
the following year). The book gives the lie to the supposition that
the technical scholar is so engaged in dissecting things of beauty,
that he is blind to the beauty of things. Delitzsch--the student and
interpreter of the Bible--assures us that he could not remember the
time when he did not muse on the language of colors; while, as for
flowers, they ever had heavenly things to tell him; in their perfume
he felt “the nearness and breath of the Creator.” Hence he called his
book _Iris_. “The prismatic colours of the rainbow, the brilliant
sword-lily, that wonderful part of the eye which gives it its colour,
and the messenger of heaven who beams with joy, youth, beauty, and
love, are all called _Iris_.” A pretty notion, this, so to name a book
which is occupied largely with the lore of Bible and Talmud.
But the question arises: Did the olden Hebrews and their rabbinic
descendants appreciate colors? Here we are face to face with a basic
error to which some investigators have succumbed. They rely too much
on _words_. The Hebrew names for colors are vague and few. Does it,
however, follow that the ancient people were unable to enjoy the blue
of the sky because they had no word for sky-blue? Men do not _name_
everything they _know_. There is, for instance, no specific Hebrew
for _volcano_, yet there are a score of passages in which volcanic
phenomena are forcibly described in the Old Testament. Delitzsch did
not belong to the superficial theorists just cited. He points out
that, though biblical language has no adjective for blue, it compares
the sky to sapphire in the Sinaitic theophany (Exodus 24. 10), as
well as in Ezekiel’s vision of the divine throne. “Sapphire-blue is
the blue of heaven; the colour of the atmosphere as illumined by the
sun, through which shine the dark depths of space, the colour of the
finite pervaded by the infinite, the colour taken by that which is most
heavenly as it comes down to the earthly, the colour of the covenant
between God and man.” So, too, the Midrash says of the blue fringe worn
by Israelites on the corners of their garments--a blue of the purple
hyacinth hue--that it was reminiscent of the heavens and the Throne of
Glory. And blue, continues Delitzsch, passes almost universally as the
color of fidelity. He proves this by reference to German and Sanskrit.
The Indians would say of a steadfast man that he was “as unchangeable
as the indigo flower,” which is as durable as it is lovely. “But in
biblical symbolism there is associated with blue the idea of the
blue sky, and with the blue sky the idea of the Godhead coming forth
from its mysterious dwelling in the unseen world, and graciously
condescending to the creature.” Delitzsch, scientific commentator
though he was, had something of the _darshan_ in him, and that accounts
in part for his charm. The spirit of Midrash rests where it will: it is
a happy truth that it sometimes finds itself a home in the hearts of
others besides the sons of Israel.
Delitzsch, then, may be likened to the _darshan_: he is equally at
home as allegorist. He can use the method of an Abbahu; he can also
follow the manner of a Philo. Take, for example, his treatment of the
four colors which are found in the priestly vestments--purple-red,
purple-blue, scarlet, and white. White, he says, is the sacred color.
Light is white and God is white. Dressed in the white of holiness, the
priests blessed Israel in the words: “May the Lord make His face shine
in light upon thee.” Delitzsch interprets light in the sense of love.
This is not quite adequate. He often quotes German university customs
in illustration of his views; it is a pity that he forgot the motto
of the University of Oxford, _Dominus illuminatio mea_ (“the Lord is
my light”), from the first verse of the twenty-seventh Psalm. “God
is the author of knowledge as well as the source of love,” comments
Mr. C. G. Montefiore. White would stand for mind-service as well as
heart-service: illumination, no doubt, is emotional, but it must also
be intellectual to be sane and complete. Scarlet, on the other hand,
continues Delitzsch in his allegory of the priestly colors, is the
contrast to white. Isaiah speaks of sin “red as scarlet”--scarlet is
the color of fire, hence of sin and the anger it evokes. “Scarlet with
white in the dress of the high priest, therefore, means that he is
the servant of that God who is holy not only in His love, but also in
His anger.” A fine phrase that, showing deep insight into the Hebrew
conception of God. Delitzsch, obviously, is not to be lumped together
with those who would make of God all love; there is a holy anger, too,
which belongs (inseparably with the love) to the divine nature. With
regard to the two purples in the priestly robes, they typify majesty,
for the dye was costly and its effects magnificent. Purple-red points
to “God’s majesty as the exalted One, and purple-blue to God’s majesty
in His condescension. For,” continues Delitzsch, “even taken in itself,
the impression produced by purple-red is severe and earnest: whereas
purple-blue has a soft tranquillizing effect. And whereas purple-red
suggests the God of judgment who, when He frowns in anger, changes the
heavens into blackness and the moon into blood, purple-blue suggests
the God of peace, who overarches the earth with the blue of heaven,
like a tent of peace.” How very fanciful, but how very Philonean, and
therefore how very Jewish all this is!
There is much more as good as this in _Iris_. For instance, one would
hardly have looked for poetry in the laws of _bedikah_--the minute
scrutiny of the carcasses of animals as regards symptoms of disease.
But just as in Samson’s riddle out of the body of the lion there came
forth sweetness, so in _Iris_ the author extracts aesthetics from the
_bedikah_ rules, and sees in them evidence of the close observation of
colors by the rabbinic legalists. “The colour of the lung especially is
subjected to the most careful examination. It is reckoned healthy if it
is black like the Eastern eye paint--that is, tending to blueish--or
green like leek, or red, or liver-coloured, but it is declared to be
unsuitable for eating if the colour is as black as ink, yellowish-green
like hops, yellow like the yolk of an egg, yellow like saffron,
yellow-red like raw flesh.” And after the recital, Delitzsch exclaims:
“Is not this a rich variegated sampler of colours?”
Since the date when Delitzsch wrote there has come about an important
change in the opinion of anthropologists. Little more than a quarter
of a century has passed, but all anthropological theorists no longer
accept (though some still do) one theory on which Delitzsch builds,
namely, that primitive peoples were color-blind. Several eminent
authorities deny that savages lack the power to discriminate colors.
The fact simply is that with advance in culture there enters greater
precision in _nomenclature_; color-language becomes not so much more
definite, as of wider range. But why? Surely not because of more
accurate observation of natural tints. Culture associates itself
with town life, and urbans are far more color-blind than rustics. At
least, statistics are said to prove this, though Dr. Maurice Fishberg
questions one of the inferences. The discussion has importance owing to
the statement often made that Jews are more subject to color-blindness
than Gentiles, the suggestion being that, as Jews live predominatingly
in towns, they see less _green_ than do those who dwell in the country.
Dr. Fishberg, on the other hand, maintains that, while the poor and
ill-nourished are always susceptible to color-blindness, Jews of the
well-nourished classes are quite as good distinguishers of shades of
color as the rest of the population of the same social status.
There remains something else to add. Culture carries with it luxury,
and luxury leads to the manufacture of silks and cloths of every
variety of shade. It is the mediæval improvement in the _art of dyeing_
that has produced the increase of definition and range in the color
vocabulary. And the art of dyeing owed much to Jews. To repeat a
well-known fact, wherever he went on his Itinerary in the mid-twelfth
century, Benjamin of Tudela always found Jewish dyers. Here, however,
we must break off, for we seem getting a longish way from _Iris_. But
not really. The book itself makes no attempt to be systematic, and
discursiveness is, accordingly, not inappropriate in a _causerie_ on
Franz Delitzsch’s masterpiece.
“THE PRONAOS” OF I. M. WISE
Of Isaac Mayer Wise it is customary to speak as an organizer and
nothing more. True, the most significant performance of his long life
(1819-1900) was the foundation of institutions for American Reform
Judaism. More than any other leader of his age he realized two ideas
which are usually regarded as contradictory, but which Wise saw can
and must be harmonized. The two ideas are not of equal importance. The
basis of a sound Jewish life is the recognition of the congregation
as the unit. Wise perceived this, but he also saw that some sort of
grouping of the units is necessary to convert the congregations into
a community. This he effected by founding the Hebrew Union College
as representative of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations. The
Union devised by Wise differs essentially from the United Synagogue
of London. The latter depends on the principle of control, the former
on the principle of co-operation. This is not the place to discuss
the relative values of the two principles. Suffice it to indicate the
distinction.
Yet, though Wise owes to his organizing skill his fame as “the most
potent factor in the history of Judaism in America,” he was also
an author. His contributions to literature were many and varied. He
was, above all, an energetic journalist; but he was a novelist and a
dramatist as well. A careful study of his writings on religion will
convince any unprejudiced reader that Wise was also a theologian of no
mean order. In his lifetime it was customary to throw easy jibes at
him as an ignoramus. But the charge was false. Not long ago I read for
the first time Wise’s most ambitious books, as well as the _Selected
Writings_, edited in 1900 by Drs. Philipson and Grossman. Now Wise,
throughout his career, worked consciously with the “aim to reconcile
Judaism with the age and its needs.” Every Jewish leader, to whatever
school he belongs, does that. With Wise, however, the aim was most
consciously felt. Hence his writings were all directed to current
problems, to the fashions of the hour; and as a result his books seemed
ephemeral. But the strange thing is that, when the fashions have
passed, it is seen that the treatment of them has permanent worth. I
have been again and again struck by Wise’s learning and originality. He
was a pioneer, for instance, in his treatment of Christianity. He held
the fantastic theory that Paul was identical with Elisha ben Abuyah,
and in other points displays a somewhat perverse ingenuity. But he was
a pioneer in trying to separate the supernatural from the natural in
the records of the early church. “The God Jesus,” he said, “and the
supernatural Paul appear small in the focus of reason. The patriotic
and enthusiastic Jesus, and the brave, bold, wise Paul are grand types
of humanity.” The epithets applied by Wise are not all well chosen;
there is frequently an eccentricity in Wise’s characterizations. But
the main distinction which he draws is sound. Again, Wise was a pioneer
not so much in laying stress on the prophetic Judaism, because Geiger
did the same before him; but where Wise led was in his effort to
attach the prophetic ideals to the congregational life. He understood
that “social service” ought to be an integral element in every
synagogue’s activity. “Whatever a congregation does, it must never
neglect the first of all its duties--the Messianic duty of Israel. It
must contribute its full share to the elevation of human nature, the
redemption of mankind, the sovereignty of truth, and the supremacy of
reason, freedom, and virtue.”
[Illustration: ISAAC MAYER WISE]
Wise, however, refused to set the Prophets above the Law. The
“Revelation on Mount Sinai” was for him “valid eternally.” It is
because of this aspect of his work that I have chosen his _Pronaos_
as the peg on which to hang these thoughts. The book appeared in
Cincinnati in 1891, and its full title is “Pronaos to Holy Writ
establishing, on documentary evidence, the authorship, date, form, and
contents of each of its books, and the Authenticity of the Pentateuch.”
The book is among the earliest of the reasoned replies to the Higher
Criticism. Wise would have nothing to do with the modern treatment of
the Pentateuch. He had as little patience with Graetz as he had with
Wellhausen. The Pentateuch is through and through Mosaic. Moses wrote
Genesis and Deuteronomy with his own hands; the rest was set down soon
after his death from the records which he had left for the purpose.
And further: “There exists no solid ground on which to base any doubt
in the authenticity of any book of Holy Writ.” With that emphatic
assertion the book ends.
Wise, it must be confessed, seemed unaware of the constructive side of
criticism. To him criticism seemed entirely negative. Again, he was
unable to see that the value of the Bible may continue, even though
the older conception of authenticity be modified. But the interest
of his _Pronaos_ just lies in the vigor with which he maintains
that older conception. His defence is spirited, and in many ways
convincing. Criticism was undoubtedly wrong when it treated Judaism
as the creation of the prophets, and the Pentateuch as lower in worth
than Micah and Isaiah. I do not remember that any predecessor of Wise
so thoroughly employed the argument of _continuity_. There is, he said,
an “uninterrupted tradition,” the whole is “a logical organism,” every
part in its right place, fulfilling its due function. Now this is the
real justification of the Bible. There are variations in the points of
view of various inspired writers, but the whole tendency is one, there
is consistency of purpose. Wise deserves lasting gratitude for urging
this truth so powerfully. Well might he term his book a _Pronaos_, a
“door leading into the interior of the sanctuary.” For a detail, it is
significant to find that Wise anticipated the newer, though I think
erratic, direction of criticism in our day. He absolutely refused to
admit that the different names applied to God (Adonai and Elohim) point
to different authors or ages.
Differ though we may with Wise--some of us on account of his rejection
of criticism, others because of his elevation of “Mosaism” into a cult,
others again because of both of these things--it is not possible
to withhold from him the crown of scholarship. In particular, his
_Pronaos_ abounds in acute and fresh contributions to the biblical
problem. It is, moreover, a striking instance of the ironies of
controversy that the most orthodox book on the Pentateuch was written
by the leader of American reform! Cincinnati, under the influence
of Wise, was certainly much more conservative in biblical exegesis
than Breslau was under the influence of Graetz. If in the seventies
and eighties a student had desired to work in an environment which
acknowledged the older views of biblical inspiration, he would have
found himself more at home in the Hebrew Union College than in the
Frankel Seminary. In the course of this series of papers, several
anomalies have been discussed. But none of them is more remarkable than
the contrast between Wise and Graetz. There is another side to it, of
course. Graetz took a wider view of tradition than did Wise, who never
truly grasped the meaning of tradition. Yet the fact remains that in so
far as the question of a tradition concerns the Bible, Wise stood far
more firmly in the old paths than did many who pass for champions of
tradition.
A BAEDEKER LITANY
In the Baedeker Handbook for Palestine and Syria there is a well-known
description of the scene at the western wall of the temple. In A. and
C. Black’s Guide to Jerusalem, the Wailing Place is included among
“Minor Sights,” but Baedeker _stars_ it, thus giving it a testimonial
of importance. Not being an inn, the wall could spare this mark. I
remember reading a clever story called “The Lost Star.” A visitor to a
hotel was dissatisfied with his treatment, and his complaints to the
manager were impatiently received. When the guest departed, he simply
said: “I am Baedeker. You have lost your star.” The Wailing Place could
do without Baedeker’s patronage.
Now, it is not my purpose to discuss the history of praying at the
temple wall. Jerome, in the fourth century, speaks pathetically of
the Jews “buying their tears,” paying for the privilege of weeping
by the wall on the anniversary of the temple’s destruction. But what
will concern us now is Baedeker’s account of the liturgy used at the
prayers. The Rev. W.T. Gidney (as quoted in Black) asserts that there
is used “a kind of liturgy,” the concluding part of which is:
Lord, build; Lord build--
Build Thy house speedily.
In haste! in haste! even in our days.
Build Thy house speedily.
In haste! in haste! even in our days,
Build Thy house speedily.
I do not know whether any Jews actually sing this Passover hymn
(_Addir hu_) on other occasions during the year. Murray’s Palestine
Handbook asserts that “the lamentations are taken from the 79th Psalm,”
a statement which points to the same source as that relied on by
Baedeker. The latter gives two forms, of which the first runs thus:
_Leader_: For the palace that lies desolate:
_Response_: We sit in solitude and mourn.
_Leader_: For the palace that is destroyed:
_Response_: We sit, etc.
_Leader_: For the walls that are overthrown:
_Response_: We sit, etc.
_Leader_: For our majesty that is departed:
_Response_: We sit, etc.
_Leader_: For our great men who lie dead:
_Response_: We sit, etc.
_Leader_: For the precious stones that are burned:
_Response_: We sit, etc.
_Leader_: For the priests who have stumbled:
_Response_: We sit, etc.
_Leader_: For our kings who have despised Him:
_Response_: We sit, etc.
Whence did the compiler of Baedeker derive this? From the Karaites. If
one turns to the fourth volume of the Karaite liturgy, published in
Vienna in 1854, page 208, this litany is to be found. It is part of a
very long series of prayers (which include, on page 212, the passage
which, in Baedeker, follows the one cited above). Psalm 79, referred
to in Murray, appears in the same Karaite book on page 206. The
selections are a tiny fraction of the whole. The Karaite prayers are
always extremely long. Thus, their marriage service fills eleven large,
closely printed sides. The Jerusalem prayers are even more elaborate.
As the pilgrim starts from home for the Holy City, the congregation
turns out to give him a send off, reciting _sixteen_ Psalms as a
supplication for his protection, and other _fourteen_ Psalms in praise
of Jerusalem. He then proceeds on his way. When he arrives at the city,
as far off as the distance at which a man can recognize his fellow, he
rends his garments and mourns as for a lost first-born. He then recites
parts of the Lamentations, and enough Psalms and Selihot to occupy
another ten pages. Some of us complain of the length of our prayers;
when we look at the weary mass of the Karaite liturgy, we stand amazed
at our own moderation.
Having tracked Baedeker to his source, and restricting ourselves to the
pages from which he quotes, it is worth comparing his version with the
original. The omissions made are so serious as to spoil the beauty of
the whole, for beautiful it assuredly is of its kind. The fault arises
from Baedeker only reading down one of the two columns. Now the lines
are alphabetical, and must be read across, not down the page. There are
other faults; for instance _palace_ in the second line is a mistake for
_house_, but the compiler may have used a slightly different version.
In the one before me there is nothing to correspond to _For our great
men who lie dead_. The rest of the lines are the same as in the book I
am using. But note how the effect suffers by the loss of the half-lines
to which I have referred. Thus Baedeker gives _For the priests who have
stumbled_, but omits the complementary phrase _For our studies which
were interrupted_. Again, Baedeker quotes _For the precious stones
which are burned_, but fails to follow it up with _For loving ones that
were separated_, a fine line which ought to have been retained in any
abbreviation, however short.
The only other passage quoted in Baedeker, “another antiphon” or
responsive chant, is the following:
_Leader_: We pray Thee, have mercy on Zion!
_Response_: Gather the children of Jerusalem.
_Leader_: Haste, haste, Redeemer of Zion!
_Response_: Speak to the heart of Jerusalem.
_Leader_: May beauty and majesty surround Zion!
_Response_: Ah! turn Thyself mercifully to Jerusalem.
_Leader_: May the kingdom soon return to Zion!
_Response_: Comfort those who mourn over Jerusalem.
_Leader_: May peace and joy abide with Zion!
_Response_: And the branch (of Jesse) spring up in Jerusalem.
Comparing this with the Hebrew original, there is no such mistake as
in the previous case. The summarizer has correctly read the lines
across the page. There are certain slips, and more than a half of the
whole (which again runs in alphabetical sequence) is left out; but the
shortening is here no loss, as the best lines have been selected.
Besides these prayers, the Karaite book includes a large number of
hymns. Among them, inappropriately enough, is the piyyut on the
offering of Isaac. In the Sephardic service this properly belongs
to the New Year; it goes to a swinging melody at Bevis Marks. True,
the scene was Moriah, the temple hill. But the Karaite book gives no
direction that the shofar is to be sounded. None the less, it finishes
this piyyut with the prayer that God will hearken to the shofar sounds
and say unto Zion: “The time of salvation has come.” Obviously, this is
a fitting prelude to the blowing of the shofar on Rosh ha-Shanah. But
it has no right where this Karaite book has transplanted it, although
the bulk of the hymn suits well enough the liturgy of the Wailing
Place.
IMBER’S SONG
Throughout its whole range modern Hebrew literature can offer no poem
to rival in popularity Imber’s song. Naphtali Herz Imber was born in
1856, and wrote _Ha-Tikwah_ in his youth in one of his many moods.
His disposition was wayward; he had a full share of the artistic
self-consciousness. Some of his characteristics are accurately hit off
in Melchitsedek Pinchas of Mr. Zangwill’s _Children of the Ghetto_.
_Ha-Tikwah_ owes its fame to the directness of its sentiment. What
makes for weakness in it as a poem makes for strength in it as a song.
The most effective national hymns are not usually the most poetical.
“God save the King” is doggerel; “Rule Britannia” is bombast. But both
put patriotic thoughts in straightforward terms, both are happily
wedded to simple tunes within the range of average voices. _Ha-Tikwah_
satisfies both these tests. The melody is beautiful and easily sung
by large masses of people. The opening line of Imber’s refrain: “Our
hope has not perished yet” is certainly derived from the National Song,
“Poland has not perished yet,” to which the Polish legions marched. So
the melody of _Ha-Tikwah_ is said to be a Polish folk-tune, but it
closely resembles a favorite melody of the Sephardim. Various settings
of the tune differ in detail, and the same is true of the current
versions of Imber’s words. It is strange that the versions--all known
to me--retain unanimously the ungrammatical second stanza. It would, I
admit, be difficult to correct it without destroying the rhythm, and
poetical license has worse things to answer for. Indeed the grammatical
lapse, to which I refer, is regarded by some authorities as perfectly
normal and admissible in the new Hebrew.
The power of _Ha-Tikwah_, as has just been said, arises from its
directness. There is no subtlety in its thought, no changes through
its nine verses. Just as few ever sing through “God Save the King,”
so few sing all the verses of _Ha-Tikwah_. The stanzas tend to become
monotonous. They all say the same thing; and it is not surprising that
the number of verses is curtailed in some printed editions (thus in
Idelsohn five of the nine verses complete the song). The burden of all
the verses is identical. The hope of a return to the land of Israel
will never die, so long as this or that endures. Each verse adds a
this or a that to the count. While myriads of Jews go as pilgrims
to the sepulchres of the fathers, while a single eye is left to
drop its tear over the ruins of the temple, while the waters of the
Jordan swell between its banks and fall with a rush through the sea of
Kinnereth, while a drop of blood courses through a Jewish vein, while
Israel retains his national aspirations, still may he hope for their
fulfilment. Some of these appeals are genuinely pathetic, and the final
appeal is magnificent in its strength. Only with the end of the Jews
will come the end of the hope. This is the only way to write a popular
song. There must be no nuances, but just a confident assertion. Imber
supplies exactly that; nothing less, and nothing more.
[Illustration: NAPHTALI HERZ IMBER]
Nothing more, for the song is not in any sense a declaration of
the end. It deals only with the means, making them into an end.
Unquenchable, he cries, is the hope of a return; no one has expressed
this hope more vigorously and takingly. But what is to be the result
of the return? With what ideals are the patriots filled? _Ha-Tikwah_
is silent on these questions. Imber was not qualified to reply to
them. He had no depth of spiritual feeling, and though he was capable
of inspiriting, he was incapable of inspiring. Hence the absence of
all Messianic thought in _Ha-Tikwah_. Compare it, for instance, with
_Leka Dodi_; the Friday night hymn is like _Ha-Tikwah_, a song of the
return, but, unlike _Ha-Tikwah_, it is Messianic, and is also a song
of the rebuilding. When the history of the neo-Zionist movement comes
to be written, this fact will undoubtedly come into due prominence:
namely, that we have been passing through a phase in which the hope of
the return has been divorced from the hope of the rebuilding.
It is remarkable that some versions of the refrain remove the only
words which possibly can bear a Messianic construction. I have not
before me the original words of Imber himself, and I have a notion
that Mr. David Yellin is responsible in part for the chorus. Be that
as it may, in the last line Jerusalem is described as “the city
where David encamped.” The phrase comes from the opening line of the
twenty-ninth chapter of Isaiah. “Woe to Ariel, Ariel, city where David
encamped”--Ariel is either “Lion of God” or, as the Targum takes it,
“Altar-hearth.” The Rabbis combined both senses. Ariel was the altar,
yet they saw something lion-shaped in the sanctuary. In Isaiah the
passage is one of doom, Ariel is to be humiliated by the Assyrians.
Curiously enough, the ancient Greek translation gives also a hostile
turn to the words “city where David encamped,” rendering “against
which David encamped.” But this is erroneous. The meaning is: the city
in which David dwelt, selecting it as the royal capital. David, it is
true, did not build the temple, but he brought the ark thither, and
offered sacrifices on the occasion, and later on built an altar. Not
only, then, is Ariel justly to be termed the city where David encamped,
but the use of the phrase in _Ha-Tikwah_ supplies the missing Messianic
hope, for David is the type of this hope. In the version of _Ha-Tikwah_
printed by Idelsohn four verses are omitted, and some of those which
are retained are set in an inverted order. More culpably, the refrain
is weakened into “the city of Zion and Jerusalem,” thus removing the
Davidic touch. The change does not merely offend against reason; it
also sins against rhyme; thus adding another instance to many others of
the destructive tamperings with masterpieces which some editors seem
unable to avoid.
One other striking merit of _Ha-Tikwah_ must be observed. Unlike many
other poets of Zion, Imber does not denounce. He makes no attack
on those who do not share his feelings. He points to the continued
existence of the hope for the return, but he refrains from condemning,
except by the merest implication, those who have no consciousness of
the hope. There is true art here, which I am able to appreciate, far
removed as I am from Imber’s nationalism. For, on the one hand, art is
best when it pleases some without paining others. Imber pleases those
who agree with him without paining the rest. On the other hand, art
is strongest when it does not recognize that there are others to be
displeased. The confident note is the artistic note. The poet assumes
that what he feels is the only thing to feel. To talk of doubters is to
throw doubt on himself. A popular song cannot stoop to argument. It is
categorical. Thus Imber’s _Ha-Tikwah_ can be enjoyed by those who do
not accept its message. And its melody is sung at table, to Psalm 126,
by some who never sing the tune to Imber’s words. “When the Lord turned
again the captivity of Zion, we were like unto them that dream. Then
was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with exultation;
then said they among the nations: The Lord hath done great things for
them.” Psalm 126, when all is said and done, is the most exquisite Song
of the Return ever written. “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.”
We can all realize the pathos and the hope, even though we are not at
one as to the nature of the harvest that is to be reaped.
INDEX
Abarbanel, 53.
Aben Ezra, 176;
_see also_ Abraham Ibn Ezra.
Aboab, Isaac, 102, 107.
Abraham Ibn Ezra, 66, 261, 269;
_see also_ Aben Ezra.
Acosta, Uriel, 240-246.
Addison, Joseph, 153, 236, 237.
Addison, Lancelot, 153-159.
Adler, H., 288.
Adler, Michael, 228, 270.
Adler, Nathan M., 288, 335.
Æsop’s Fables, 18, 22, 35, 84.
Aguilar, Grace, 247-253.
Ahad ha-‘Am, 185, 289.
Ahikar, the story of, 17-23.
Al-Fasi, 63.
_Alfieri and Salomon_, by Landor, 260-266.
Al-Harizi, 79, 81.
Allenby, General, 328.
Allingham, William, 82.
Alnaqua, Israel, 102, 103.
Anti-Maimonists, 85.
Apion, Josephus against, 32-38.
_Arabian Nights_, 18.
Archagathos, 43, 44.
Aristeas, Letter of, 116, 117, 119, 120.
Aristobulus, Jewish Hellenist, 44.
Aristotle, 78, 79.
Arnold, Edwin, 233.
Arnold, Matthew, 32, 42, 207.
Artom’s Sermons, 297-302.
_Aruk_, the, by Nathan of Rome, 60-66.
Ass-worship, libel of, 34.
Auerbach, Berthold, 242.
Baedeker’s, Handbook for Palestine, 353-358.
Bandmann, A., 240.
Bar Abun, Solomon, 97-101.
Bar Hisdai’s _Prince and Dervish_, 84-90.
Baratier, 270.
Barb, Issac, 304.
Barbary Jews, Lancelot Addison on the, 153-159.
Barlaam and Josaphat, romance of, 88, 89.
Belinson, 291.
_Benevolent Jew_, the, by George Walker, 192-198.
_Ben Ezra, Rabbi_, by Robert Browning, 269-275.
_Ben Karshook_, by Browning, 269-275.
Benisch, A., 254, 255, 256.
Benjamin of Tudela, 270.
Bernstein, 282.
Berdoe, 271.
Black’s Guide to Jerusalem, 353.
Blanco White’s Sonnet, 220-225;
_see also_ White, Joseph Blanco.
Bodenschatz Pictures, the, 160-165.
Bonajuto, 116;
_see also_ De Rossi.
Book of Tobit, 17, 18, 22, 23.
Bornstein, H. J, 304.
Box, C. H., 136.
Braham, 208, 209.
Briggs, C. A., 225.
Brooke, Stopford, 274.
Browning, Robert, 265, 269-275.
Buddha, life of, 88.
Buffon, French naturalist, 32.
Burke, Edmund, 168.
Burne-Jones, 95, 96.
Buxtorf, J., 62.
Byron, 199, 324.
Byron’s _Hebrew Melodies_, 194, 207-213, 265.
Caecilius on the Sublime, 39-45.
Caine, Hall, 240.
Carigal, rabbi, 176.
Cassel, Paul, 110.
Cervantes, 109.
Cheyne, T. K., 321.
Chilmead, Edmund, 138, 139, 140, 141.
Chwolson, Daniel, 110.
Cicero, 33.
Cobbett, William, 200.
Cohen, F. L., 101, 208.
Cohn, 26.
Coleridge, S. T., 214-219, 224.
Coleridge’s _Table Talk_, 214-219.
Conder, 325-332.
Conybeare, F. C., 25, 26.
Cowley, A. E., 80.
Crawford Haggadah, the, 92, 96.
Creighton, bishop, 113.
Crump, C. G., 260.
Cromwell, Oliver, 138, 139, 147, 337.
Cumberland, Richard, 191, 193, 201, 275.
Da Costa, H. Men., 174.
Dahl, Basil, 304.
Dalman, G., 62.
Dante, 263.
De Rossi, Azariah, 116-121.
De Rossi’s _Light of the Eyes_, 116-121.
De Sola, 79, 80.
Degli Mansi, Italian Jewish family, 60, 118.
Deity, depicting of the, 92, 93, 152.
Delitzsch, Franz, 340-346.
Demosthenes, 33.
Deutsch, Emmanuel, 190.
Dickens, Charles, 227.
Didot, M., 151.
Disraeli, Benjamin, 226-232, 336.
Disraeli’s _Alroy_, 226-232.
Disraeli, Isaac, 229.
Dobson, Austin, 125.
Doré, biblical pictures of, 254.
Drake, C. F. Tyrwhitt, 328.
Dutuit, M., 151.
Efros, Israel, 102.
Eichler, German artist, 161.
Eisenmenger, 189, 288.
Eliezer, son of Hyrkanos, 273.
Eliot, George, 229, 321.
Elisha ben Abuyah, 244, 348.
_‘En Ya’akob_, 102-107.
Ephrathi, Joseph, 265.
Epictetus, 32.
Espinasse, Francis, 153.
Erasmus, 110, 113.
Essenes, the, 20.
Eusebius, 48, 330.
Ezekielos, Jewish Greek poet, 46-52.
_Faithful Shepherdess_, by Fletcher, 127.
_Family Papers_, by Wilhelm Herzberg, 283-289.
Fettmilch riot, 130.
Finzi, David, 118.
Fishberg, Maurice, 345, 346.
Fletcher’s _Faithful Shepherdess_, 127.
Frankel, Z., 288, 352.
Frankfurt, Moses, 103.
Franzos, Karl Emil, 276-282.
Friederich of Brandenburg, 160.
Furnivall, 269.
Gaffarel, J., 136.
Gaster, Moses, 172.
Gautier, 325.
Geiger, Abraham, 349.
Geiger, L., 72.
Gellius, Aulus, 33.
Gibbon. E., 233.
Gidney, W. T., 353.
Gifford, 48, 49, 50, 51.
Ginzberg, L., 54, 221.
Gladstone. W. E., 276, 317.
Glenelg, Lord, 233.
Goethe’s _Faust_, Hebrew translation of, 306.
Goldsmid, Isaac Lyon, 183.
Goldsmith, Oliver, 136, 334, 335.
Gordon S. L., 304.
Graetz, H., 44, 62, 71, 72, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 129, 184, 187,
188, 189, 228, 287, 350, 352.
Grant, Robert, 233-239.
Green, A. L., 335.
Grossman, Louis, 348.
Grotius, 214.
Guarini and Luzzatto, 122-128.
Güdemann, M., 65.
Günzburg;
_see_ Stassof and Günzburg.
Gutzkow’s _Uriel Acosta_, 240-246, 265.
Haes, Frank, 92, 93, 96.
Haggadah, of Sarajevo, 91-96.
Hahn, Joseph, 129-135.
Hahn’s Note Book, 129-135.
Hai Gaon, 53, 66.
Halper, B., 9, 18, 274, 304.
_Hamlet_, Hebrew translation of, 304.
Handel, 265, 290, 291.
_Ha-Tikwah_, by N. H. Imber, 359-364.
Havell, H. L., 40.
Heine, H., 81, 321.
Henry, Michael, 311-318.
Herder, Johann Gottfried von, 184-190.
Herder’s Anthology, 184-190.
Herodotus, 46, 51.
Herzberg, A., 288.
Herzberg, Wilhelm, 283-289, 339.
Hesiod, 51.
Hillel, tanna, 53, 251.
Hoffmann, G., 18.
Homer, 40, 41, 57, 263.
Hühner, L., 176.
Hurwitz, Hyman, 216, 217.
Hutten, Ulrich von, 109.
Huxley, 218, 219.
Ibn Ezra, Abraham, 66, 261, 269;
_see also_ Aben Ezra.
Ibn Gebriol _Royal Crown_, 77-83.
Ibn Gebriol, Solomon, 77-83, 97.
Ibn Habib, Jacob, 105, 106, 107.
Idelsohn, 360, 363.
Imber, Naphtali Herz, 359-364.
_Iris_, by Franz Delitzsch, 340-346.
Isaac Pinto’s Prayer-Book, 171-177.
_Isaac’s Lamp and Jacob’s Well_, 102-107.
Israels, Josef, 307.
Italia, Salom, engraver, 151, 152.
Jacob ben Nissim of Kairuwan, 54.
Jacobs, Joseph, 84, 88, 89, 90, 270, 271, 274.
James, William, 182.
Jastrow, Marcus, 62.
Jastrow, Morris, 176.
Jeffery, 213.
Jellinek, Adolf, 245, 300, 301.
Jellinek, Hermann, 245, 246.
Jellinek, Moritz, 245.
Jerome, 353.
_Jews of Barnow_, by K. E. Franzos, 276-282.
Johanan ben Zaccai, 274.
_Johanan Hakkadosh_, by Browning, 270, 271.
Johnson, Samuel, 136.
Johnson’s Rasselas, 87.
Josaphat;
_see_ Barlaam and Josaphat.
Josephus, 32-38, 44, 273.
Joubert, 110.
Judah ha-Levi, 28, 79.
Judah the Prince, 55, 57, 58, 59.
_Judas Maccabæus_, by Longfellow, 290-296.
Juvenal, 109.
Kalir, 79.
Kalisch, Marcus, 333-339.
Kalonymos ben Kalonymos, 109.
Karpeles, Gustav, 81, 82.
Kaufmann, David, 287.
Keats, John, 95.
Kimhi, David, 46, 86, 87.
_King Lear_, Hebrew translation of, 304.
Kinnaird, Douglas, 208, 211.
Kipling’s _Recessional_, 193.
Kirchner, 162.
Kirkpatrick, 222.
Kohler, K., 273.
Kohut, Alexander, 62, 64.
Kohut, G. A., 172, 174, 175.
Krassensohn, N. P., 303.
Krauss, S., 34, 330.
Kuiper, 47.
Lactantius, 49.
Lamb, Caroline, 210.
Landor, 260-266.
Lavater, 161.
Lazarus, Emma, 319-324.
Lee, Sidney, 170.
Leeser, Isaac, 182, 247, 249, 252, 254-259.
Leeser’s Bible, 254-259.
Leibnitz, 109.
Leon Modena’s _Rites_, 136-143.
Lessing, 166-170, 184, 188, 194, 269, 273, 303.
Lessing’s First Jewish Play, 166-170.
Letteris, Meir, 306.
_Letters from Obscure Men_, 108-115.
Levi, David, 254.
Levi, Lyon, 201.
Levy, S., 101.
_Life Thoughts_, by Michael Henry, 311-318.
Lilien, E. M., 95.
Longfellow, 290-296.
Longinus, 39-45.
Lucas, Mrs. Henry, 77, 80, 98, 99.
Luria, Isaac, 28, 158.
Luther’s version of the Bible, 309.
Luzzatto, Moses Hayyim, 122-128.
Lyon, Solomon, 211.
Lytton, Bulwer, 207, 213.
Macaulay, Thomas, 58, 159, 277.
MacDonald, George, 276.
Mackay, popular versifier, 317.
Maimonides, 24, 58, 84, 140.
Mallock, W. H., 337.
Mandelkern, S., 213.
Marlowe, Chris., 194.
Martyrologies of the Jews, 68.
Massel, Joseph, 291.
Meir, tanna, 244.
Meisel, W. A., 86.
Menasseh ben Israel, 147-151.
Mendelssohn, Moses, 166, 167, 178-183, 187, 188, 189.
Mendelssohn’s _Jerusalem_, 178-183, 254, 269, 303, 313.
Mendes, F. de Sola, 287.
_Menorat ha-Maor_, 102-107.
_Meor ‘Enayim_, 116-121.
Michaelis, 167.
Middleton’s _Descriptive Catalogue of the Etched Work of Rembrandt_,
149.
Mieses, Fabius, 303.
Milton, John, 36, 237, 306.
Modena, Leon, 136-143, 166.
Molière, 227.
Montefiore, C. G., 29, 343.
Montefiore, Sir Moses, 168.
Monypenny, 226, 227, 228, 229.
Moore, Thomas, 200, 213.
More, Sir Thomas, 113.
Moses, Longinus on, 40, 41.
Müller, Johann Conrad, 161.
Müller, Max, 66.
Müller and Schlossar, publishers of Haggadah, 91.
Murray, Fairfax, 151.
Murray, Gilbert, on “The Rise of the Greek Epic,” 57.
Murray, John, 207, 208.
Murray’s Palestine Handbook, 354, 355.
Musafia, Benjamin, 62.
Nathan of Rome’s Dictionary, 60-66.
Nathan, Isaac, 194, 207-213.
Neubauer, A., 55, 56, 69.
Niemeyer, 168.
Nieto, Isaac, 171, 172.
Nordlinger, Joseph;
_see_ Hahn, Joseph.
Nusbiegel, G., 161.
Ockley, 139.
Oesterley, 136.
Orr, Mrs. Sutherland, 271.
_Othello_, Hebrew translation of, 303-310.
_Paradise Lost_, Hebrew translation of, 306.
Pascal, 109, 113, 261.
Pass, Ernest de, 316.
_Pastor Fido_, by Guarini, 122-128.
_Path and Goal_, by Marcus Kalisch, 333-339.
Pfefferkorn, 110, 112, 113, 288.
Philippson, Ludwig, 254.
Philipson, David, 348.
Philo, 24-31, 35, 44, 120.
Phoenix of Ezekielos, the, 46-52.
Picart, Bernard, 162.
_Piedra Gloriosa_, 147, 151, 152.
Pinto, Isaac, 171-177.
Pinto, Joseph Jesurun, 174, 175.
Piyyut by Bar Abun, 97-101.
Plato, 337.
Pliny, 33.
Plutarch, 44.
Pompey, 43.
Pool, David, 171.
Possart, 170.
_Pronaos_, by I. M. Wise, 347-352.
Prothero, 211.
Rabelais, 109.
Rashi, 63, 65.
Raspe, Rudolf Eric, 194.
Reinach, Théodore, 41, 42, 43, 44.
_Rejected Addresses_, by Horace Smith, 199-204.
Rembrandt, 147-151.
Renan, E., 108.
Reuchlin, J., 111, 112, 115.
Roth, C. M., 161.
Rousseau, 184.
_Romeo and Juliet_, Hebrew translation of, 304, 310.
Rothschild, James, 305.
Rothschild, Lionel de, 336.
_Royal Crown_, by Ibn Gebriol, 77-83.
Rubin, Salomo, 241.
Ruskin, 307.
Sa’adya, 46.
Sabbatai Zevi, 228.
Sachs, Michael, 78, 79, 80.
_Sacred Poems_, by Robert Grant, 233-239.
Salaman, Mrs. R. N., 77, 97.
Salfeld, 69, 70.
Salkind, Solomon, 305.
Salkinson, I. E., 303-310.
Schiller, F., 305.
_Salomon_;
see _Alfieri and Salomon_.
Samuels, M, 183.
Sarajevo Haggadah, the, 91-96, 152.
Schelling, 214.
Schlegel’s translation of Shakespeare, 305.
Schlossar, _see_ Müller and Schlossar.
Schmidt, Cæsar, 286.
Schopenhauer, A., 82.
Schudt, anti-Semite, 114, 115, 288.
Schürer, E., 43, 44.
Schurzfleisch, 42.
Scott, Walter, 193, 194, 195, 196, 200, 204, 210.
Scott’s _Ivanhoe_, 193, 194, 196, 231.
Shakespeare, William, 89, 184, 214, 224, 274, 294.
Hebrew translations from, 303-310.
Sheridan, 333.
Sherira, Letter of, 53-59.
Sidney, Philip, 266.
Singer, Simeon, 32, 172, 173, 248, 300.
Slousch, Nahum, 306.
Smith, Horace, of the _Rejected Addresses_, 199-204.
Smith, James, of the _Rejected Addresses_, 199-204.
Smolenskin, Perez, 303, 309, 310.
Solomon, S. J., 95.
Solomons, I., 150, 151, 152.
_Sorrows of Tatnu, the_, 67-73.
Spicer, H., 240.
Spinoza, Baruch, 181, 241, 242, 244, 245.
_Spirit of Judaism_, by Grace Aguilar, 247-253.
Stassof and Günzburg, publishers of the Haggadah, 91.
Steele, Richard, 114, 115.
Steinschneider, M., 78, 88, 175.
Stern, 69.
Stevenson, 213.
Stiles, Ezra, 176, 177.
Stobbe, 69.
Stokes, Francis Griffin, 111, 114.
Sublime, Caecilius on the, 39-45.
Suidas, 42.
Sully, James, 184.
Surrenhusius’ Latin Mishnah, 162.
Swift, J., 112.
Swinburne, A. C., 207.
Symonds, John Addington, 123, 124.
Tacitus, 34.
_Tatnu, Sorrows of_, 67-73.
Tennyson, Alfred, 290, 317, 318.
_Tent Work in Palestine_, by Conder, 325-332.
Tertullian, 72.
Thackeray, H. St. J., 119.
Theobald, 309.
Theocritus, 128.
Therapeutae, 26, 28.
Thomson, 325.
Tiberius, emperor, 33.
Titus, 61, 117.
Treitschke, German historian, 71.
Tree, Herbert, 240.
Trench, 186.
_Uriel Acosta_, by Gutzkow, 240-246.
Vaughan, Henry, 238.
Vaughan, R., 162.
Vogelstein, 62.
Voltaire, 109, 175, 303.
Vossius, Isaac, 147, 149.
Wagenseil, 288.
Walker, George, 191-198.
Walker’s _Theodore Cyphon_, 191-198.
Wellhausen, Julius, 186, 333, 350.
Wendland, 26.
Wharton, Edith, 112.
Whewell’s _Astronomy_, 222.
White, Joseph Blanco, 220-225.
Williamson, 154.
Wise, Isaac Mayer, 347-352.
Wolf, Lucien, 226.
Wordsworth, William, 166.
Yellin, David, 362.
Yellin method, the, 248.
_Yosif Omez_, by Joseph Hahn, 129-135.
Zangwill, Israel, 80, 88, 228, 240, 359.
Zedner, J., 103.
Zunz, Leopold, 97, 98, 102, 116, 118, 119, 120, 254.
The Lord Baltimore Press
BALTIMORE, MD., U. S. A.
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation errors have been corrected.
Page 93: “to repoduce the whole of the text” changed to “to reproduce
the whole of the text”
Page 126: “moveover that the happy period” changed to “moreover that
the happy period”
Page 242: “had beeen” changed to “had been”
Page 314: “pomote peace” changed to “promote peace”